Teens Quite Aware of What They’re Going Through

They might not know everything, but it's a mistake to dismiss post-Parkland activists for their youth.

Dave Schechter is a veteran journalist whose career includes writing and producing reports from Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Billy Planer logs more hours with teenagers than anyone I know, many of them spent on a bus.

Planer’s Etgar 36 Jewish-themed (but open to all) summer trip begins in Atlanta and rolls from coast to coast, visiting historic sites and meeting with people of diverse opinions who are engaged in the major issues of the day.

On weekend trips that focus on Southern civil rights history, the passengers may be teens and parents from Jewish congregations (some 50 thus far) or groups from churches and schools.

The 51-year-old Planer, who grew up at Ahavath Achim Synagogue, created the Etgar (Hebrew for “challenge”) program in 2002.

Planer doesn’t romanticize teenagers, who make up about half the 1,800 people who ride with Etgar 36 annually.

“Youth is celebrated in this country — over-celebrated, in my opinion — … and revered and worshipped,” he said during an hour-long cup of coffee. “I don’t worship the kids. I think they’re neat. I think they’re interesting.”

Cartoon by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah

Planer admires an entrepreneurial spirit — “You can chart your own course. And, by the way, it’s socially acceptable” — that has imbued teens with an astounding degree of confidence.

He also sees deficiencies, some owing to “parents who have connected their own identity to their kids way too much” and others to technology that makes staggering amounts of information and entertainment instantly available yet diminishes personal communication and problem-solving skills.

A conversation with Planer is particularly interesting at a time when activist teens are being fitted with a halo and receiving more than the proverbial 15 minutes of fame.

But respond they have, in Parkland, Fla., and beyond — motivated by grief, anger and an arrogant belief (which may be age-appropriate) that their time is now and that they will fix what adults have broken.

Those who remember the Vietnam War protests will recall the derision heaped on the “long-hair, pot-smoking hippies” who clashed with various forms of authority. Such generalizations made it easier for “the establishment” to dismiss both messenger and message.

“They’re cynical but yet don’t feel powerless,” Planer said. “I think it’s a healthy combination of it all, from self-absorption to caring to having the spotlight. That’s quite a cocktail you got there.”

The Parkland students and their peers elsewhere may not have been vocal activists the day before, but the Valentine’s Day massacre gave them “skin in the game,” a fear that they are at risk by merely showing up for school.

What will become of their activism when the spotlight is off, of course, remains to be seen.

Should their elders have faith in them?

“As much as we had in any generation,” Planer said. “The kids are all right. But let’s not forget they’re kids. Let’s not make them any better than they are. I think it would help them to realize that they don’t know it all, not yet.”

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